A lack of lucrative jackpots meant Kiwis spent far less on the Lotto over the last year, but over a quarter of Kiwis are still playing every week.

The Lotto NZ annual report, tabled in Parliament on Monday, showed that sales dropped by almost ten percent for 2014/15 financial year that ended June 30.

The sales drop led to a profit of $198.6 million, down $27.6 million on the previous year.

Every week, an average of 1,228,458 people played Lotto – around 27 percent of the population. Some of those people could be counted twice if they bought several lots of Lotto tickets each week.

This number was down from 1,289,867 the year prior, but significantly up from 943,703 the year before that.

$437 million was paid out to winners. All Lotto NZ profits are distributed to community groups across the country.

The decline in sales was attributed to a lack of high jackpot Powerball draws.

Powerball only topped $20 million for one week during the financial year, compared to eight weeks in the year prior.

"Lotteries are by their very nature random, and in any given year the length of jackpot runs and the corresponding size of big prize offers have a significant influence on sales," Lotto NZ spokeswoman Emilia Mazur said.